The subject matter disclosed herein relates to fault detection and protection of compressors.
Compressors are used in a variety of industries and systems to compress a gas, such as air. For example, gas turbine engines typically include a compressor to provide compressed air for combustion and cooling. As appreciated, the health of the compressor affects performance, efficiency, downtime, and overall availability of the machine. If compressor components (e.g., blades, seals, etc.) wear or break, then the compressor may not provide sufficient compression of the gas (e.g., air) to the target system (e.g., gas turbine engine). Furthermore, breakage of compressor components may cause damage to the target system (e.g., gas turbine engine), thereby leading to downtime and increased repair costs. This is particularly problematic for power plants, which rely on continuous operation of gas turbine engines. As a result, it is desirable to identify faults at an early stage to protect the compressor and downstream gas turbine engine components from damage. Unfortunately, existing systems are not particularly well suited for early detection of faults in compressors. This is particularly true with multi-stage compressors, such as those used in gas turbine engines in power plants. For example, existing systems do not monitor inter-stage regions of these multi-stage compressors.